Business

John Torinus | Business Commentary

Smart Growth at 10 seems a success

Builders, Realtors no longer hostile

Madison - On the 10th anniversary of the state's Smart Growth law, leaders of the Wisconsin Builders Association and the Wisconsin Realtors Association gave the innovative comprehensive planning initiative a qualified endorsement.

At a conclave sponsored by 1000 Friends of Wisconsin called Smart Growth@10, Jerry Deschane, Builders Association executive vice president, said his organization went into the legislative process "kicking and screaming" a decade ago, but participated in the drafting of the law, which he now regards as "a good planning statute."

The new planning approach helped by making local plans "more data driven" and therefore more effective, he said.

Although implementation of the law is just beginning, Tom Larson, director of regulatory and legislative affairs for the Realtors group, said his organization is "cautiously optimistic" it will yield good results.

The drafting of the comprehensive plans at the local level over the past 10 years benefited greatly from the improved level of public participation and from making planning "more proactive instead of reactive," he said.

Nearly 90% of the counties, cities, villages and towns met the Jan. 1 deadline for completing their comprehensive Smart Growth plans. That's a big advance from 2000, when only one-quarter of local units had any kind of plan and only a small percentage had a comprehensive plan.

Many of those who were there at the creation of the Smart Growth Law convened at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison to evaluate what they had wrought. In general, they were happy with the progress, but each had an agenda for improvements.

Spell out rules

Deschane agreed 100% with Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz - a rare occurrence, he quipped - that some kind of Smart Growth dividend should be created to encourage intelligent growth in communities. "Builders don't want to use as much land" as local ordinances require, he said. More density would be possible if clear rules were spelled out for builders to follow as a template.

Larson made the point that the first cut on the law did not put enough emphasis on housing density issues, on affordable housing or on planning for agriculture.

A number of tools are now in place to protect working lands for farming and forestry. They include seed money for the purchase of easements to protect farmland through the PACE program, agricultural zoning derived from some of the comprehensive plans, and $27 million annually in tax credits for farmers in zoned areas or in newly enabled Agricultural Enterprise Areas.

The Department of Agriculture is now receiving proposals for the first pilots using those new planning tools.

La Crosse County planner Charlie Handy said the comprehensive planning process had produced new understandings about the development marketplace. Developers in his county now know, for instance, there is an inventory of 2,500 vacant, developed lots - a 40-year supply at present absorption rates. "Understanding that the market is really flooded is really helpful," he said.

Boundary agreements

Rick Stadelman, executive director of the Wisconsin Towns Association, whose members vary in their level of support or opposition to the new law, said the bottom-up, participatory nature of the new planning process had been a positive. He said more attention needed to be paid to housing, economic development and intergovernmental cooperation in the next round of planning.

The law requires local plans to be updated every 10 years.

Stadelman cited Appleton as a city that had arrived at boundary agreements with all but one of its surrounding towns. Eileen Kelley, planning director for Middleton, said her city has also reached boundary agreements with neighboring towns.

Ed Huck, executive director of the Wisconsin Alliance of Cities, said the new planning process had created a shift toward regionalism in planning and a move away from "a time when towns and cities were at each others' throats constantly."

The people behind Smart Growth received some welcome affirmation from the marketplace. The commercial reaction was distilled by Mark Eppli, professor of finance and real estate at Marquette University, who summed up the relevant research this way:

"Yes, there is a premium for Smart Growth development, and it is maintained and grows over time. It is not a novelty thing."

The higher prices for green developments and for LEED-certified structures would be offset by higher building costs, but his review of real estate research, along with anecdotal evidence, suggests investment returns several points higher than conventional development.

Participants left the conclave with the feeling that the decade-long process constituted a good start on bringing planning into the modern world.

John Torinus is chairman of Serigraph Inc. of West Bend and a founder of BizStarts Milwaukee, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship in southeastern Wisconsin. Contact him at torcolumn@serigraph.com.